Ahhh the life of an Au Pair. What DOES an au pair DO anyway?! Well, many things really. Most of which do not involve taking care of children apparantly! (or not so....)I visit Paris every weekend to discover a new neighbourhood each time: this past visit was the lovely artists' corner, a very quaint, very french, albeit very touristy neighbourhood called Montmartre. Otherwise known as where the Sacré Coeur can be found, or where they filmed my favourite movie, Amélie (a.k.a Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulin here in France)
Also the spot where you can get suckered into having your portrait done by one of the many artists who rob you of all your money afterwards...but at least give you the drawing before you run away fast! all the while hearing their deliciously evil laughter at having made yet another xx€!!! (no I will not admit how much I paid!)
However, I think this is so far one of my favourite corners of Paris. Why? I like the atmosphere and the character of it.... the Sacré Coeur is perched atop a hill overlooking Paris, and so to find streets that actually have an incline was kind of a novelty! When you duck in and out of all the side streets to avoid the tourists as much as possible, you find the quieter cafés, you see the smaller details like the flower pots in the windows of apartment balconies 7 stories up, and take note of designs that distinguish one building's windows from the next. Of course, I can find this in any Parisien neighbourhood ....until I stop to talk to the french man sitting on the stoop of his building, noticing that he is drawing a lovely picture of the steps across the street that lead up to the Sacré Coeur ... I realize that yes, there is a nice vibe around here! To meander, to stop, smell the roses and then paint a picture of them!
A few days later I went back to Paris for the day since Véro had a conference for work there as well, so we went together. Her to her conference, and me: to La Cimetière Père Lachaise. Here is an enormous cemetary that houses the likes of Chopin, Molière et La Fontaine, Famille Hugo, Edith Piaf, Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust, Balzac and Jim Morrison. Wait, Jim Morrison? Yeah so no one really likes to admit it, but a lot of people come here just to see his grave! And yes, in case you're wondering I was one of them. I mean, you should see this cemetary! It has street names to find your way around! I got so lost in here I went in the same circle 4 times!! In my opinion you would need to spend a better part of a day to cover all the ground. So because I did not have a whole day, I went in circles to find Jim's grave. I heard rumours it was the only grave that had its own guard.....as I noticed it was also the only to be barricaded. The only to have a bottle of wine, and a cigarette placed upon it....
Hors de Paris, la vie est aussi très sympa. The other day I was dropped off by the family in the streets of Senlis, a small city about a 30minute drive from us. I haven't thought much of it every time we drive through it, but yet again, I discovered a great gem. This place is really an example of old France. Small cobblestone streets (yes I realize they are all narrow here but these are reeeally narrow!) and houses that date from the 1700's! Let me tell you how I know that last fact: Walking along, hood up to shield the rain, iPod in my ears, whistling a happy little diddy, crossing paths with an old french man on his bicycle when WhoA!! French man falls off his bicycle head first over his handlebars! His book goes flying and I let out a little yelp of Oh! and run to retrieve his book for him. He picks himself up, smiles and says (as they all say around here!!) "Vous n'êtes pas française, non?" All I said was 'oh!' How does he know this??! All I could do was laugh and confess that non, je suis Canadienne, mais je parle français aussi, merci.
He excused himself politely and explained that not all frenchmen ride their bikes this way.... We started talking and I explained that I was touring the streets of Senlis for the evening....he immediately wheeled his bike over to a nearby pole to lock it up, saying well! Let me show you around my town! We spent the next hour wandering all around, as he pointed out little known facts about odd houses or streets or gardens....it was SO wonderful meeting this jolly ol' frenchman... As we parted, I didn't know how to express my gratitude enough to him in french, that all I could blurt out was "....Thank you!!!"
This past weekend was Easter so the family and I went away with the family of one of Edouard's friends, les Minguez'. We pulled up to this mansion and I thought wow! Les chambres d'Hôtes that we're staying in is this mansion?! Well in fact, no. Turns out it was the little house next door, these were just the friends of Christophe's that ran this little B&B.So we rented a house in the countryside and Mr. Minguez brought along his fishing rods for us...we were in a small town called Sénarpont (dad you'll need a really detailed map for that one) in la Vallée de la Somme. So really, we weren't far from la Baie de Somme, on the north-western shores of France.
The town didn't exactly scream vacation-getaway paradise, but hey, guess that's what country folk like to do! (And yes, that is snow falling on our last morning on this, the main street of the village.)
Oh and obviously ALL we did for 3 days was EAT EAT EAT. I honestly felt sick after every delicious meal because I just can't say no to raclette, les crêpes, les moules frites, les crêpes encore, fondue....it was too much goodness.
Every meal consisted of first l'apéro: wine, champagne, cider, vodka, you name it, with small nibblies to accompany. Then, the huge main meal enough to feed a small army of the 9 of us. Now I'm really stuffed. But wait, then the 3 different types of cheese come out, with the fresh baguette that we haven't finished, with more wine because, you can't eat cheese without a glass of wine, and you can't have a glass of wine without cheese to go along! 'Mais non, I don't need a refill Christophe, cuz then I'll have to take more chee....' oh ok then, guess my glass just got filled again! I'm feeling tipsy, and now I have to take more damn cantal!! (How I love cantal!!) AND THEN, when that's done and you're undoing the top button of your jeans, pushing your chair out from the table to recline a little, THEN out comes the cakes and chocolates for dessert to be had with coffee. OH god! Twice a day for 3 days! Lunch lasted from 1pm to about 430pm every day, and dinner/apérotifs would start again at 830pm. Siesta after lunch, and going to bed at night on a full stomach. Pure deliciously evil madness. I love it.
Now, I was pretty excited about this prospect of fishing! I had all sorts of grand ideas and images in my mind as to what it was going to be, and was all hyped up about it until Sunday morning came (it was typical march weather of snow sun rain wind and slush that morning already) and we drove out to the fishing grounds:
Needless to say, we didn't catch much in this petit étang, though I was delighted to see so many fathers and sons out this easter sunday morning, fishing together. That's Mr. Minguez and his daughter Flora who loves fishing with her daddy!
And here is a picture of me, my first time seeing the ocean since being in France! YAY! Hood up, toque on, gloves on, pouring rain, cold, grey, windy as hell, waves pounding the pebbly beach, and a visit of about 5 minutes before having to run soaking wet back to the car to go eat les moules frites at a restaurant for dinner! WHEW! I really honestly was exhilarated by that 5 minutes, the family laughed at me thinking I was absolutely nuts to love the ocean that much!
Next vacation away: T-minus 3 weeks 'til Normandie!
ps -- don't ask how its going with the kids. It's a love-hate relationship. We love to hate each other. 'Nuff said!
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